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Making a Home for Herself
Tucked on a side street a short walk from the strip malls and fast-food shops of Long Hill Road in Groton, in a one-bedroom efficiency in the La Triumphe apartment complex, Rose Price is making for herself the home she'd long desired.
Price, 52, moved into the second-floor apartment last May, and still likes to try new arrangements for the Goodwill couch and chair and other second-hand furniture filling the large combined living room-kitchen and her bedroom.
A small hallway closet holds neatly organized cleaning supplies, and she recently hung floor-length curtains across the sliding glass door that opens onto a small balcony.
She wanted to adopt a cat for her new home, but that would have cost $25 extra per month in rent. Instead, using the wages she earns at her part-time job cleaning offices at the Naval Submarine Base, Price bought herself two pastel-colored canaries. They chirp and hop and huddle close together inside a spacious cage that sits next to the large kitchen counter.
”Their names are Angel and Sunshine,” said Price, pointing to each in turn. “They like to play with each other and kiss. But they don't like the vacuum. When I vacuum, they chirp and chirp and flap their wings.”
Price, who is developmentally disabled, had been living with her teenage son at the home of a Montville family that provided foster care through a Department of Developmental Services program. Before that, home for the two was an apartment in Norwich, but the neighborhood, she said, wasn't a good place to raise a child. The Montville home, where her son has remained, was much better, but after six years there, Price longed both for the freedom and the responsibility of independent living.
”I just said, 'It's time to be on my own,'” she said, seated at her round wooden dining table, sharing a bowl of her fresh-baked cookies with some visitors. From a small boombox, Christian inspirational music played softly.
”Where I was before, I couldn't do any of the cooking, and here, I make everything - I make recipes, cakes, Cornish hens,” said Price. “I just like being on my own, doing what I want and going where I want to go. But it is more responsibility. You've got to make sure everything is picked up and clean.”
Philip Sutton, Price's case manager with the developmental services department, said Price is a success story for supported independent living for people with disabilities. Once she decided she wanted her own apartment, Sutton arranged through a housing service run by United Cerebral Palsy of Eastern Connecticut to find her one. The entire process, he said, took about a year, from her initial decision to securing the rent subsidies, locating an apartment and helping her outfit it with furniture, kitchen utensils and other necessities, then getting her moved in and settled.
Price had looked at other apartments before choosing this one. It proved the best match because it offered a washer and dryer in each unit - one of Price's main criteria, since going to a laundry without a car is difficult. Plus she already had friends there among the 28 others placed at the complex by UCP.
The agency also provides around-the-clock support staff there and keeps a community room in the complex where Price and the other UCP housing clients gather for pizza and movie parties or just to stop by for a chat.
”I just call (the UCP office) when I want to go for a walk and let them know,” Price said. “Everything is close. I can walk to Big Y and the Family Dollar and Goodwill.”
Kim Coughlin, associate director of residential services for UCP, said the agency has 41 people with disabilities in their own apartments, 35 of them in supportive housing arrangements like Price. Staff help them learn the cooking, cleaning and safety skills they need to live on their own, take them on weekly trips for shopping and other errands, and help them with banking, budgeting and bill paying. UCP is one of several area agencies that provide this type of supportive housing and placement service.
”I had to learn how to use the dishwasher and the stove,” Price recalled. “The first time I tried to cook I set off the fire alarm.”
She has decorated her apartment simply, with photos of her parents and son, her boyfriend and jigsaw puzzles she has put together and sealed for mounting, and is looking forward to finding a few more pictures to spice up the cream-colored walls. Medals for walking events she participated in last summer with Special Olympics hang next to her dining table. Her parents have visited, and she hosted a birthday party for her son.
For many housing program clients, Coughlin said, learning to live within a tight budget is often the toughest part, and Price has been no exception. The monthly rent of $975 is paid with a combination of funds from Social Security, the developmental services department and some of her wages.
”Financially,” said Sutton, “there are some challenges. But overall she's been a great pleasure to work with. She's made a nice home here. We're very proud of her.”
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